Guitars are meant to be played and enjoyed, so it always makes us smile to see one that has clearly been doing just that. This 1957 Martin 000-18 wouldn’t color its hair to hide the gray; it wears its age proudly.  So we put away the airbrush and the buffing wheel  and focused on getting it structurally stable and playing better than ever. It took a neck reset, refret, and some sealing of cracks to get it there, but the results were worth the effort.

The cracks on the sides are pretty severe. It will take some patching and, okay maybe a little touch-up to get them stable.

Here, Dan gets the side pieces to fit together perfectly before gluing and clamping them back together.

He fills the larger gaps with mahogony and colored epoxy, then files it level.

Some stain and grain lines were enough to make these patches look like they belong.

Next it’s on to the neck reset. This is a well-known and well-documented procedure where the neck is removed from the body and the dovetail joint is re-shaped to achieve correct playing action. More than 50 years of steel strings pulling on the neck has compressed the wood inside the joint and made the strings sit unbearably high.

Not every guitar is worth the trouble and expense involved in a neck reset, but a Martin holds its value very well. Even one that looks old and worn out like this is a no-brainer for this job.

First we use an electric heating element to soften the glue under the fretboard tongue.

Once the tongue is loose from the body, we drill 2 small access holes through a fret slot and inject steam from an espresso maker to loosen the glue inside – the second hole provides a route for the steam to escape. The wooden jig helps push the neck out of the dovetail joint once it comes loose.

Once the neck is off, we quickly remove the old glue residue from both the neck and body before it hardens and prepare both the neck pocket and the neck heel for resetting.

Dan uses a razor sharp chisel to remove tiny layers of mahogany from the neck heel. Then to really zero it in, he pulls strips of sandpaper to make tiny adjustments until the angle is just right.

We like to say that baseball is called a “game of inches” and guitar repair is a game of thousandths of an inch. Each pull of sandpaper changes the angle ever so slightly; so he counts how many pulls he does on one side of the neck heel, then does the same number of pulls on the other side.

When the neck angle is just right, it gets firmly clamped and glued back into place. When the glue is set, it’s time to replace the old frets.

To soften any glue inside the fret slots, Dan heats each fret with a modified soldering iron and carefully pulls it out.

Once the frets are out, he uses a carpenters level and adhesive sandpaper to level the fret board.

Next he cuts each new fret and hammers it home.

The new frets have to be trimmed, shaped, and leveled before polishing.

Since the new frets sit slightly taller than the old worn ones, we made a new bone nut. This lets the strings clear the fret tops without buzzing.

The improved neck angle allows us to get the playing action perfect, with enough saddle left for adjustments over the coming years.

A neck-reset can effectively give an old guitar like this a new life, promising many more years of music. It would have been a shame to hang this guitar on the wall when that 50 year old wood makes such a sweet sound!

The owner of this Regal tenor resophonic guitar is something of a tenor guitar connoisseur. He found this one listed in an online tenor guitar forum with no assurances that it would ever play. He bought it just because it looked so cool, thinking at the very least it would look good on a wall. But when it arrived in decent condition, he decided to see if it could be made playable. We installed a new resonator cone, spider bridge, and saddle and set the action to be nice and easy. It turned out great. I suspect famed tenor guitar player Neko Case would love how it sounds.

This is never how you want your Martin to look. But if your headstock does break off, you’d like to at least see a long break like this one with plenty of lateral gluing surface. Modern wood glues work their way into the pores of the wood, fusing them together again with incredible strength. Some repair shops take the approach of cutting away some of the wood and inlaying a dowel or a new piece to splice the two sides together. There are times when this is called for, but we try to avoid such measures whenever possible because it breaks and cuts even more of the wood fibers. If it ain’t broke don’t break it!

Before applying any glue, we used molding plastic to create a protective caul that fit the exact shape of the headstock. This will keep the clamps from crushing the neck while still applying enough pressure to actually heal the break. Once we have a perfect fit, we apply the glue and clamp it back up.

After the glue is dry and the clamps are off, we apply a small amount of colored finish over the break line. Then we carefully draw in dark grain lines to blend in with the rest of the neck.

The break is now completely invisible…

…and strong as nails. We guarantee this repair will hold until the next time it gets dropped and hits the ground (hopefully never again!)

Not long after posting photos of our previous Mossman neck reset, we received two more Mossman guitars that needed the same treatment, but with an extra necessary step. Since they received identical work, the photos in this post will jump between the two guitars. You’ll see them receive neck-resets, re-frets and that extra step – the addition of a brace that was missing in the original design. The guitar in that previous post was made a few years after these and by that time the design flaw had been remedied.  After years of not seeing this company’s guitars, it was interesting to see a number of them arrive so close to each other. 

In the early 1970’s, Mossman guitars experimented with an internal bracing pattern that was intended to reduce mass and increase volume. The company’s guitars from that period were built without a large spruce brace or strut that is traditionally placed above the sound hole.  In its place were two tiny braces and a pair of mahogony “feet” that protruded lengthwise from the head block (the head block is a block of wood inside the guitar where the neck is attached.) In the photo below, we’re looking through the sound hole at a mirror aimed up at the feet. Guitar repairmen before us have dubbed this Mossman condition “The Agony Of The Feet.”  The new brace will go between the two skinny ones.

Above, you can see that the two skinny spruce braces that pass underneath the feet are tapered down to almost nothing, then notched in the middle (to accommodate a truss rod wrench.) Not a whole lot of strength there. As a result, once the guitar hits 30/35 years the neck has shifted substantially – raising the action and making a neck reset necessary and long overdue. A quick check of the bass side action shows it to be more than 5/32″ – substantially higher than we’d like. The bridge saddle was too low to bring down any further, so a neck reset is in order.

Like lots of 30+ year old guitars, this one will also need a new pickguard.

First we heat the fretboard tongue, loosening the glue that holds it to the top surface. These guitars used a simple two-bolt neck joint rather than a dovetail, so we don’t need to steam off the entire neck.

With the neck off, Dan chisels a hole between those two skinny braces. Through this hole, he’s able to cut through the “feet,” creating a space big enough to accommodate a custom-made full size brace.

Here’s that new brace being glued into place. Looks stronger already!

After resetting the neck angle and re-installing the neck, it’s time to spruce up the fretboard. After 35 years of wear and tear, it’s ready for a face-lift. Yuck.

Dan removes the old and pitted frets, then levels the fretboard to create a true and even surface for the new frets.

After carefully hammering each fret into place by hand, he trims and shapes the fret ends and dresses the new fretboard.

Here’s a look at the new bone saddle – tall enough for many more years of playing.

Playing action for both guitars is now low and comfortable.

Both of these Mossman guitars sounded truly great when the work was complete. They required an extensive restoration, but the owners both agreed it was worth the trouble and expense.

Another Mossman attack averted.

We weren’t sure we believed a phone caller who said his vintage Gibson acoustic guitar had a crack in the top that was open more than a quarter inch. But when he brought it in, sure enough that crack above the sound hole had buckled and bent until it was open wide. This crack likely started out as a hairline split on a guitar that hadn’t been sufficiently humidified. It wasn’t repaired right away and over time the top wood curled up and almost completely separated from the brace underneath. It’s a tricky repair that came together quite nicely. While we were at it, we reset the neck, planed the fretboard level, replaced the frets, and replaced the dried and curling pickguard with a custom-cut new guard that fit right in with this old beauty.

See how you can properly humidify your guitar to protect it from damage like this in our recent special post on guitar case  humidifiers.

Here’s another couple of shots of that crack along the fretboard. This is a common spot for humidity cracks because it falls along the edge of rigid areas like the fretboard and head block and runs parallel to the grain of the top.  Most often, we see these cracks soon after they occur, unlike this one that went untreated for years.

Closer inspection reveals yet another crack along the edge of the pick guard – another common spot for humidity cracks. This repair requires removing the old pick guard, gluing a spruce splint into the crack, and making a new pick guard. (The old one is usually so dry, shrunken, and caked with old glue that to reuse it is rarely worth the trouble it would take to make it look right again.)

It wasn’t until this repair was complete that we realized we hadn’t taken pictures of the process. But thanks to the owner, we have the before shots above to compare with the after shots below. Looks like a new guitar!

That’s a protective film on the new tortoise shell pick guard giving it a dulled appearance here. It peels off easily to reveal  a shiny surface and a fit that perfectly matches the old pick guard’s “footprint.”

The newly leveled fretboard and new frets, reset neck, and comfortable playing action.

Thanks again for the before photos Ronald!

Mossman Guitars is a smaller American guitar company with an interesting history dating back to the mid 1960’s. They have always sought to focus on high quality construction and materials

The owner of this South Wind model suffers from arthritis in his hands and needs his guitars to be set up with low action. But this particular guitar, like most acoustics over 20 years old, had gradually developed an under-set neck that is evidenced by high action and a low bridge saddle. A simple set-up just wasn’t going to give us the results he needed so we opted to reset the neck angle.

Here you can see the string action where the neck joins the body.  It’s what some guitarists might consider playable, but with his arthritis, it was just too uncomfortable for the owner to play.

If the saddle were sitting up nice and high like on a newer guitar, we could lower it to bring the strings down. But if we did that here, the strings would not not have enough downward pressure or break-over to produce a strong sound. It would end up sounding like a sitar. So we’ll need to remove and reset the neck angle and replace the saddle with a taller one.

The Mossman utilizes a neck joint that is part bolt-on and part glued mortise and tenon so after removing the bolts, we need to loosen the glue by injecting steam into the neck pocket. At that point the neck comes off rather easily.

Then Dan re-shapes the neck heel so that it will join the body at the correct angle.

Then he re-attaches the neck to the body.

As with most neck resets, we’ll also level and refret the fretboard.

Finally, this 30 year old Mossman is ready to go with easy action even with a new taller saddle.  It should easily have another 30 years of  music ahead of it.

The owner of this bass had the Guild custom shop inlay his wife’s name on the fretboard several years ago.  And they did a great job. The bass sounds terrific. The only problem is that they are no longer married. It seemed like time to move on, so in a relatively pain-free procedure, we replaced the fretboard and inlaid some slightly less specific fretboard markers.

First, let’s get that old fretboard off of there. Using an electric heating blanket, we soften the glue that holds the ebony fretboard to the mahogany neck.

Next, we gently work a spatula between the pieces until the fretboard pops off.

At this point we’ll need to prepare the neck for a new fretboard by sanding the surface level. Then the new fretboard gets glued into place and trimmed to fit the neck. Between the heat, removing the old fretboard, and shaping the new one, the finish gets pretty  roughed up so we strip and refinish the entire neck.

Next it’s time to rout channels for the new pearl inlays and glue the new pieces into place. Then we level the whole fretboard to clean it up and get ready for fretting.

After leveling and cleaning the new fretboard, Dan hammers in the frets, making sure each one is seated perfectly.

A fresh set of strings and The Works setup later, this bass is ready to make some new music!

The owner of this 1930 Martin 518 saw work we performed on another Martin and entrusted us to repair a lengthy side crack, separated bridge, and to reset the neck angle. This is work we frequently perform on older Martins, but we thought you might like to see it done on a real pre-war model.

For more than a century, guitarists have recognized something special about Martin guitars. Great feel, great sound, great looks. But we repairmen have grown to love them for  a different reason. For most of that time period, Martin has built guitars with certain qualities that make extensive repairs possible even on very old instruments. Until they recently began bolting necks into bodies, all of their parts have been held together by precise fitting joints and small amounts of glue. A little bit of heat or steam in just the right place allows us to loosen that glue just enough to correct even very small changes. They suggest that even 70 years ago these craftsmen understood that some day their work would need to be taken apart and put back together. Thanks guys!

We began this repair by addressing the most obvious problem: a split in the lower side that stretched across most of the lower bout. We glued and clamped it together using spool clamps and traditional hot hide glue. For a guitar like this with its original finish intact, we’ll skip the touch-up and just try to smooth and clean the crack area so it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Next we move on to the neck. Over time, the pull of steel strings has pulled the neck into a steeper angle. As a result, the string action gets higher and higher, requiring the bone saddle to be lowered nearly to the top of the ebony bridge. Since we can’t go any lower with this saddle, we’ll remove the neck completely and reset the dovetail joint so we have a healthier angle and more comfortable playing action. At the same time, we noticed that the back of the bridge was beginning to pull off the top, so with the owners permission, we removed it and cleaned the gluing area. We’ll glue it back down later.

The neck reset begins with removing the thirteenth fret and drilling a tiny hole in the fret slot where we’ll inject steam to loosen the glue that holds the neck joint together. Why the thirteenth fret? Because That’s where you find the end of the dovetail’s tenon on every guitar. In the picture below you can see the two drill holes right at the edge of the tenon.

Once the neck is off, Dan removes the remaining old glue while it’s still soft. Then he changes the neck angle by removing small amounts of material from the neck heel. How small? He pulls strips of sandpaper against the neck heel, keeping count of how many pulls per side. Once the angle is right, the neck goes back on. (You’ll notice the bridge is now back in place too.)

The next day, when the new glue is set, he planes the fretboard level and replaces the frets… usually. But in this case, the fret wire is actually steel bars, not modern nickel fret wire. Bar frets are not only part of the guitar’s history and character, they’re also no longer made. So to make the original frets taller, he raises them by filling the fretboard slots with glue and ebony dust. Then he hammers them back into place, levels the tops and dresses the fretboard.

The final steps are a new vintage style bone saddle, handmade here for this guitar alone, then a fresh set of lightweight strings – to put minimal stress on this old instrument, and our Works setup.

This pre-WWII Martin has survived nearly seventy years and with this work, should be playable for many more. It sounds incredible.

A beautiful Taylor 914CE acoustic guitar came to us with two top cracks that had opened up after being ‘repaired’ by another shop (that shall remain nameless.) The previous repairman made three errors in our estimation: first, he enlarged the cracks with a small router or Dremel tool – removing too much wood in the process; second, he spliced in sitka spruce patches that do not match the original Engelmann spruce top; and third – well he just didn’t do a very good job of either since the cracks opened up again. The owner paid more than $4000 for this guitar and he wasn’t pleased with the look of the previous repair or the fact that it held for less than a year.  We made a decision to not just replace the 2 bad patches, but to replace the entire area between the cracks with a carefully chosen set of Engelmann. That turned out to make this repair less expensive to perform and gave us a much better outcome than just filling the cracks again.

We started by removing the bridge and using a Dremel tool to clear away the original spruce material.

“Wait wait!” you say. Wasn’t the Dremel part of the problem with the old repair? It was. But we’re using it in a different way here. We don’t want to damage the delicate bracing below and by making very shallow sweeping cuts, the Dremel allows us to slowly shave the whole area down a little at a time until the pieces can be easily removed. Take a look:

By dropping an inspection light into the guitar, we backlit the braces and traced them into the top to make sure we didn’t cut into them.  Then we cut the rest of the way through the spruce until the pieces started coming out.

We then bookmatched our patch of Englemann spruce, taking care to match the width of the grainlines in the original top. Once it was joined properly, the edges of both the patch and the outer lines of the hole are precisely fit so there are no gaps.

Touching up the patch alone and getting it to look right would have been nearly impossible, so we stripped the finish from the entire top, …

…then refinished the top, reglued the bridge, and reassembled the guitar.

Beautiful. Compare this repair to the previous one. It’s more stable, much better looking, and much better sounding.

*******

The Moral of the Story: Top cracks like these on an acoustic guitar, are usually a direct result of the wood drying out. This guitar wasn’t dropped or mishandled; it simply was exposed to the extra dry air that we find in Chicago when the weather gets cooler and the furnace comes on. Dried guitars also see problems with loose frets, bridges, braces, and even necks.  We recommend that you store your guitar in it’s case year round – not on a wall hook or stand – and that when your furnace is on you keep a damp humidifier inside the case as well. It’s a cheap and easy way to protect your guitar from the changing weather conditions in our city.